I was doing touch and goes in the grass. Typically that's not a good idea. Grass and helicopters don't share good karma. But the blades gave enough grunt to pop up out of the grass time after time. The little tree incident came from a sideways departure. I came up at full right aileron, spun the tail around and drove headlong into the tree. I was watching the heli - the tree was in my periphery - or it was until I ran into it. It sort of became the focal point at that juncture.

The next fight was from the patio at FF, but I was gaining distance faster than altitude and didn't quite clear the hedge. The heli fell out of the bush on its skids, so I spun it up with the elevator at full forward until it just tipped onto the front of the skids, then maxed the throttle. With the nose down about 30° it pulled hard across the back yard. To slow it, I throttled back and released the elevator, but it still rose about 20 feet. My choice was the shed roof or the tree. And I chose the tree over the shed. The blades folded again, the heli fell out, landed on the skids and away we went again at full throttle , 15 feet up, charging for the patio. When I released the elevator and pulled back to half throttle, the heli nose went skyward, forward motion stopped and it settled onto the patio. For this one flight I actually looked like a heli pilot. I can't do that stuff on demand, but every once in a while counts in my book. At least it counts when I have an audience.

My next step is to mod a set of good blades. I have a chunk out of a lower blade that is a 3/4" long x 3/6" deep- out of the leading edge. I'm sure the balance is 'just wonderful' right now. But it flies Great!

Finally I'm flying again - in the name of BIG SCIENCE.